After 151 years, Popular Science will no longer offer a magazine

dantheclamman@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 310 points –
After 151 years, Popular Science will no longer offer a magazine
theverge.com
23

So basically some fucking shitty investment company bought the magazine and immediately destroyed it. How sad 151 years and all gone in a blink of eye because of some shitty investors.

Investment companies are often only able to buy other companies like this when they're already declining significantly.

Magazines in general are on their way out. It makes me nostalgic-sad too, but the world is changing and this is one of the ways in which it is changing.

Right. I think the point though is that investors come in and they don't give a shit about what they invested in as long as they get a return.

Whereas somebody who cared about the company might invest in such a way that the company may survive even if the return is not that great.

The investors come in and force the company to agree to terms and of course those terms do not favor the company, they favor the investors.

I agree completely. I loved magazines, I used to buy them all the time, I even went to a specialty magazine shop when I was younger in my home town and it was incredible. Eventually, things started shifting towards online and magazines started inserting more and more advertisements and less content, and then magazines just started dying out more and more. They are awesome part of history that will be sad to see go.

Too bad. I used to love Popular Science. But as time has passed the articles have become far more speculative and fantastical. Same with Popular Mechanics, once a staple of DIY home creations to sucking the military’s dick with MIC dream weapons and UFOs.

Time for them to die.

Let's not talk about Discovery channel either, it went from a history/national geographic channel to 24/7 reality TV.

Same with the history channel. It's almost like the unrelenting pursuit of profit destroys interesting niches in the name of widespread appeal

Too bad. I used to love Popular Science. But as time has passed the articles have become far more speculative and fantastical. Same with Popular Mechanics, once a staple of DIY home creations to sucking the military’s dick with MIC dream weapons and UFOs.

Both were staples in my house in the early 90s. I learned so god damned much from popsci and popular mechanics, but holy lord popsci and then popmech got bad.

That's a shame. I have a copy from 1918. It's really fun to flip through every once in a while.

Science isn't popular. Popular denial, now that is a moneymaker.

This was my first magazine subscription....followed by the original Sonic the Hedgehog comic and WCW Magazine (pretty sure it was called that, black and white newspaper type print). Sad to see them go, I remember the classified ad area in the back was usually interesting/odd.

I still have 2 magazine subscriptions that are active. I used eBook readers for a few years, but eventually reverted back to physical print for nonspecific reasons.

It's nice having a monthly surprise of sorts delivered in the mail that is not a bill or from Amazon.

"Enjoy our new all digital publication: Jesus Hates Queers."

/SARCASM

My domain was a head-nod to PopSci. Such a good peridicle back in the day.

It's where Elon got all of his "ideas".

Not inaccurate. The hyperloop was a rebranded vac-train concept from around 1900, and he knew he could not patent it, so he claimed that he was willingly open sourcing the white paper out of generosity. The idea was not feasible then nor now and we can't tell if he realized that.

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